Week 5 Recap — Stanley, The Tetons, & Yellowstone
We’d been lucky thus far.
Sure, we’d had one-off days filled with gray clouds and a smattering of quick rain here and there, but nothing of significance and never for more than a day at a time. This week, however, it felt tough to escape the rain. And with dark gray days and heavy rain surfaces the ever-lurking concern for us living in a van: that the solar energy we depend on would drain and the batteries powering our fridge, lights, outlets and other key resources would hit zero.
It happened once before — on our very first ‘test’ trip we took over the summer in the Porcupine Mountains in Michigan, before we officially left on our ‘real’ trip this fall. On the third night we’d ever spent in the van, in a cellular dead zone in the middle of a dense national forest, we awoke at 4 AM to a blaring beeping alerting us to an issue somewhere in the van. It became clear when Jordy opened the electrical cabinet that the issue lay with the battery, a system he was supposed to have learned before the trip but hadn’t had time to fully research. After what felt like hours, a calm returned to the van as the beeping subsided, but the battery was critically low. That day, we simply drove back home and let the batteries charge back up naturally as the van sat under the sun on Jordy’s parents’ driveway.
But that was before we truly learned how the solar system in our van worked. It was before we understood how to properly manage and monitor our solar capacity and status. Honestly, it was before we understood to always park in direct view of the sun’s glare, eschewing shade whenever possible, as simple as that seems. And it was before we were thousands of miles from home, as part of a test trip where we were intentionally testing various appliances to observe how each would impact our battery levels. It wasn’t a surprise that it happened; in fact, it was the lesson we needed most.
Now? There’d be no easy solution should our battery reserve deplete. We have a fridge full of food that would go to waste and we’d be out of luck for charging our phones, laptops, and WiFi device, among other electric appliances we depend on. Sure, we’d buy new food and find places to charge up; we’d use lanterns and flashlights if need be. We would, of course, ultimately be okay. But when you live in a van and so much of what you do day to day depends on the solar system, the thought of it failing can be daunting, and it’s something you want to avoid. Jordy, in particular, spends a lot of energy worrying about it (Jahna kind of/sort of cares, but leaves the worrying to Jordy).
So when the forecast along our route this week called for rain and more heavy rain, the worrying set in. Each planned destination seemed to be grayer than the last, as if we were closely tracking the arc of a major storm system. And we couldn’t just adjust the route to find sunshine. For the first time in what feels like far more than five weeks, we pointed the van east this week with a specific destination in mind — we headed toward Chicago in order to make it home for two weddings in the coming weeks.
The good news? All the worry, at least for this week, appears to have been for naught. Over the course of five days from Tuesday through Saturday, we dipped from 100% capacity down to the 25% marker, the lowest we’d experienced since our test trip, as we carefully managed what we plugged in and for how long. We may not have been able to handle another gray day without needing to shut the system down to avoid hitting zero. But Sunday brought a full day of sunshine and we inched back up into the 70% range and looked ahead to (literally) brighter days ahead along the route back to Chicago.
The other good news? The constant rain and the long drive home didn’t mean a dull week; in fact, just the opposite. In one week (fine, eight days if we’re being transparent), we completed our favorite hike of the trip so far, traversed three states, visited three national parks, and hit a national monument along the way to boot.
We started the week in beautiful Stanley, the last of our Idaho destinations we’d be hitting as part of this leg of the trip. There, we trekked our first double-digit miler hike through the Sawtooth Mountains, set among stunning Rocky Mountain vistas and several picturesque alpine lakes along the route. From there, we began the journey east toward Wyoming, stopping at the Craters of the Moon National Monument, a quick but otherworldly stop in a landscape formed by historical lava flow as far as the eyes can see.
We made it to Jackson Hole, Wyoming, and parked overnight at a local distillery, Jackson Hole Still Works, through Harvest Hosts. There, we experienced our first Sloshie, a (heavily) alcoholic but delicious slushie-like drink and Jackson Hole tradition. The next morning, we set off toward the first of three national parks along the route home, Grand Teton National Park (which Jordy annoyingly and continuously referred to as the Jan Teton National Park in honor of Jahna, who found it far less amusing than he did, which is typical of nearly 95% of his jokes).
In our expert judgement, everyone should experience the Tetons. The mountain range juts out of the earth to set an imposing and jagged skyline miles into the distance, a seemingly endless and breathtaking natural phenomenon that is amongst the most awe-inspiring scenery we’ve ever experienced despite the cold and gray day, challenged perhaps only by Going-to-the-Sun Road in Glacier National Park a few weeks back. They’re a marvel to stand before and take in; it’s the type of scenery that makes you put the phone down and stare off into the distance. We spent the day driving the scenic roads throughout the park, stopping at key sights to explore Jenny Lake, summit Signal Mountain, and observe wildlife along Moose-Wilson Road. We saw four moose, countless deer, and what Jordy is pretty sure was an elk.
The next day, we drove another hour north and entered Yellowstone National Park, the very first national park and the biggest in the lower 48 states. Calling the park big doesn’t do it justice; it can take hours to drive from site to site within the park. But, it too is majestic, albeit in a different way than we’d experienced in the other national parks on our trip thus far.
While Yellowstone is so big that it does indeed contain mountains, lakes, a massive (grand) canyon, and other geological features that we’d observed in Glacier and the Tetons, it’s the geothermal features that line the park that steal the show at Yellowstone. You know about Old Faithful and probably have seen the pictures of the colorful Grand Prismatic Hot Spring, but you aren’t prepared for the sheer number of thermal geysers, pools, and hot springs, each its own unique hue of color, bubbling and hissing and smelling strongly of sulfur. You walk along boardwalks through geyser basins, the paths dotted with the numerous natural features, watching your step as to avoid a burning sensation while simultaneously hoping for an eruption. It was unlike anything we’d experienced before.
We spent the day driving the immense park, touring the geysers, and hiking to stunning pictures of the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone. We saw more buffalo than we could count, a moose, an elk, a pack of deer up close and personal, but no bears, much to Jordy’s dismay. But Yellowstone lived up to the hype, too, similar to the other prominent parks we’ve been fortunate to experience thus far in our five short weeks.
From Wyoming, we continued east, stopping at Gizmo’s Dog Park in Dubois where Lucy was reunited with a ball for the first time since we left Chicago, and appropriately had a field day running around the dog park with mountains in the distance. We spent the night before hitting our last national park of this stretch, Badlands National Park, nestled in the Black Hills National Forest in Spearfish, South Dakota. We parked overnight at a brewery, once again through Harvest Hosts, and were openly and loudly mocked by a table of patrons for wearing masks indoors, as a poster for a ‘medical freedom rally’ was plastered within eyesight. I quote — “Who are these people? Will they take their masks off to drink? I honestly have no idea what they will do!” South Dakota was fun.
Over the next couple days, we will make our way back home officially and spend ten or so days back in Chicago before hitting the road once again. What a start to the trip it’s been.
Where We Were
We started the week in Stanley, Idaho, and made our way to Jackson Hole, Wyoming. We finished the week in Spearfish, South Dakota, about an hour and a half west of Badlands National Park.
Where We’re Heading
We’ll start the week in South Dakota, spend a night in Wisconsin along the journey home, and finish the week back home in Chicago.
Stat of the Week
$955.38 — the total amount spent on diesel over the course of our trip thus far, well above what we’d originally slotted in our budget! That’s partially because of the initial journey out west and the return trip home (long, straight drives without extended stops translates to more diesel consumed), but has also been impacted by fairly significant increases in gas/diesel prices over the last month. No problem, it’s well within the contingency category we had in our budget, so the overall numbers look good so far. We view diesel as effectively the rent we pay to live out this life.
Official Jahna Minutes Driven Tracker
0 — still, zero.
Pics From The Week
